I still have Nightmares
by Slumbering Sin
Summary: Vincent dreams of Lucretia.


"Vincent."

_He raised his gaze to her, setting down the standard issue hand gun onto the table and resting the polishing rag atop it. The Turk fixed intensely crimson hues onto the blurred features of her face, the sun decanting in from the aft kitchen window, distorting her outline. "What would I like to do after this...?" She seemed to be smiling confidentially, though endlessly more of a masterpiece than Mona Lisa. "That depends on what happens here, I suppose." Her smile deepened, now brilliantly evident and pure. "I've always wanted to be a mother." The light reverbed inside his iris' as he consumed her visual, shifting the color from a profoundly deep red to splintered scarlet. "Is that so?" He watched her for a moment, then lowered his eyes back to the gun, a flood of darkness cool against the scorch of afternoon sunlight. Her cheeks flushed lightly and her smile dimmed with admittance. "What about you, Vincent? Have you... ever thought about a starting a family?" Taking up the rag again, he began to wipe away invisible flaws perverting the matte black finish, offering her silence in exchange for her honesty. She allowed him this, until the hush grew stale. "Vincent...?" She took a tilt her head to the right curiously, though he did not look up. "I would not be an adequate father." He stood, slipping the pistol into the holster beneath his suit, adjusted the Shin-Ra identification badge against his breast and turned away from her, from the lethargic sunlight, disappearing into shadows._

No, that's not right.

_They sat together outside the Nibelheim mansion, bathed in moonlight. She possessed an overpowering luminescence, beautiful Lucrecia. It had been a boundless observation that a woman with child seemed to radiate with beauty, joy and life- but she exhibited that glow long before pregnancy. Her condition acted only to amplify it, her full form appearing almost etherial. She traced her fingertips against his knee, adorned with pressed navy blue. She was speaking, but her voice was inaudible, lost somewhere against the grind of memory. He rest his hand atop hers, leading it to his cheek, guiding her palm to straddle his lips, consuming her smell and touch. With his idle hand, he contoured the outline of her jaw with the tip of an index, memorizing the details of her immaculate face. "I think... you will be a wonderful father." Her whispers were swept away with an updraft, floating back down to occupied ears. Twisting her fingers into his, she inclined closer to kiss him, her small breaths painting flushness into his porcelain skin. Over her shoulder, he could see a form emerged from the maw of the mansion, it's glasses reflecting ambient light in razor lucidity. Lucrecia opened her eyes, allowing her hand to fall away, she studied Vincent's distracted gaze. Attention shifted from her lover to the ascending man in a lab coat, her body tensing. He stood, reflexes sending him to the sleeping gun nestled in it's holster._

No, that's not right either.

_Hojo wasn't maneuvering toward them. He was already there, his thin arms snaked around her, her appearance sallow and fatigued. The Turk's face contorted with disarray, crying out to her, an irrelevantsomething, a name or a question, perhaps even just a noise– extending his palm to her. Shaking her head violently, she buried her face with force into the nape of the Hojo's chest, relaxing her weight into him. Attempting to blink away confusion, he continued to stand, hand outstretched, lips ajar with the sting of betrayal. And the detail of that something came, a rush of it, order in chaos. "... Why...?" Something was wrong with his eyes, the abrasive swell of human. The adjacent figures became distorted, significant specifics lost to a colorless grain. When they began to gloss with tears, it burnt, his form trembling beneath the slick cotton of his Turk issued uniform. Hojo laughed like shattering glass, but his elongated lips were still, frozen in a wry, conquering smirk. "Because... He is my son."_

None of this is right.

_Hojo was not there at all. Just Lucrecia, turning in reaction to the syllables of her name. The warmth of her smile dissipated in response to the man who stood now in front of her, scarcely recognizable, into an expression of appall and fear. From beneath the smear of tattered red, with inexorable speed a wash of tarnished gold lashed unforgivenly into her abdomen ripe with child. Gilded fingers traveled through fabric, skin and muscle and when they touched against the intention, constricted around the contents of her womb. She did not make a sound, her eyes flooding with reactionary tears- wide and dull- staring at her reflection in dialeted pupils framed with once-recognizable crimson. Their gaze was not broken as he pulled his arm steadily backward, unearthing his gauntlet from her form, sparkling and slick from the elbow down to a twisted symphony of riving and suction. She collapsed onto knees spattered with scarlet, pigmant draning from her cheeks and brow. Reaching for something to break her fall, she groped at a slacked belt drapped across leather clad thigh, fingers stickey with blood, smearing herself against raven leather. Fixated on the face half hidden behind a mess of dull carmine canvas and straps, she slumped to the floor, gasping, writing. Tightening his grip on what he held in his left hand above her, he positioned the brushed, matte black mouth of the Glock 19 9mm flecked with blood between her brows. Thick with the smell of copper and taste of salt, she forced a plea threw shivering tiers. "Vincent! N–"_

_**Bang.**_

Eyes fusilladed, reality deluged threw the haze of the nightmare. Pupils contracted to pinpoints against seas of crimson, a disjointed emission of vocal friction escaping. Adrenaline and nausea forced his body involuntarily over from his back to front, breath sporadic and quick, lungs thrusting nonexistent whispers threw the back of his teeth. Slender digits made haste to his temples, palms pressed to the either side, fingers slithering against his scalp threw a mess of raven hair. His heart beat with such vigor he justifiably imagined it would shatter his ribcage. His face, slick with sweat tingled and burned, his sinus filling with dense clear sludge. He braced himself against purple lining with elbow and palm, head hung, ebony locks brushing the backs of his hands. Tears streaked anguish against his cheeks nose and jaw, falling in crystalline droplets to dance down his forearms. Overwhelmed, he allowed himself to collapse, wrapping thin arms around the bridge of his nose, fingertips clutching at the wings of his shoulder blades. Pulling knees to his chest, he forced his body into the fetal position, devouring himself in a tangle of limbs. He clenched his teeth, chocking back a raw, inevitable scream. Mouth tight against his elbow, he attempted to suppressed it, focusing on regaining the rhythm of his breath, and steadying his heart. It was just a dream.

_Beautiful Lucrecia._


End file.
